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<title>I have measured out my life in coffee spoons by auxanges</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24824938">I have measured out my life in coffee spoons</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxanges/pseuds/auxanges'>auxanges</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Developing Relationship, M/M, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Sburb (Homestuck), Quadrant Confusion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:47:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,288</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24824938</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxanges/pseuds/auxanges</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Two chums just relaxing poolside, contemplating the evolution of their bromance.”</p><p>“I hate that you said bromance just now.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dirk Strider/Karkat Vantas, Jake English/Dirk Strider, Jake English/Dirk Strider/Karkat Vantas, Jake English/Karkat Vantas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Homestuck Polyswap 2020 - Prospit</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I have measured out my life in coffee spoons</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/petasos/gifts">petasos</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>prompt:<br/>"Post-game, Dirk and Jake are kinda flip-flopping between romantic and platonic. It’s awkward! They need help! That’s where Karkat steps in, playing ashen between the two. Okay, maybe it’s not traditional ashen, but regardless, he’s very helpful. Here’s the kicker: this fails miserably. Karkat falls for both of the people he’s playing mediator for, and Dirk and Jake are absolutely falling for him. What are they to do? Oh, you know.</p><p>Honestly, if post-game doesn't appeal to you but the pairing does, feel free to go wherever you want with this. If you want to do a "trolls on earth" scenario, or humanstuck, or whatever you want... well, you just have fun with it."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You find them on the beach. Not the real beach—that would involve Dirk going outside for more than his customary ten-minute sunshine time and socialization jamboree—but the little turtle-shaped pool Roxy expanded and fitted with working tides and a sand bank. Dirk and Jake are lounging in fold-out chairs, each with one foot in the plastic ecosystem and the other stinking up the place.</p><p>“You’re stinking up the place,” you say. “I can smell your twisted panties and rank emotional repression from Can Town.”</p><p>Jake flips up the tinted lenses on his glasses to pout at you. You don’t know how he got that good at pouting, unless his native fauna involved master pouters you weren’t aware of. Where you grew up, the only thing remotely close to a pout usually came to you in olive-green text with some graphic depiction of how many stars were reflected in the noble purrbeast’s orbs or whatever.</p><p>Fuck, he’s saying something, you think. You were too busy staring at his lips, which were probably complaining anyway. “—perfectly normal discussion for two guys to have, you know? Two chums just relaxing poolside, contemplating the evolution of their bromance.”</p><p>“I hate that you said bromance just now.”</p><p>Dirk chimes in. “All I said was ‘what are we’ which apparently broke some kind of peacetime convention. He fucking dunked me.”</p><p>Sure enough, his hair is falling in his eyes, even frizzing around his ears. It’s not a terrible look. Neither are their muscle shirts, if you’re being honest—godhood or not, they fuck around enough to keep fit.</p><p>God damn it, Jake is talking again. “You dunked me first!”</p><p>“Hearsay. Karkat, pull up a chair.” Dirk hooks a foot around a piece of lawn furniture a paint swatch catalog threw up on.</p><p>You park your ass on the atrocity, squinting at the pool. You can’t see the bottom of one end. “You’re lucky I’m a professional and not asking for a mercy kill right here and now, this pool looks drownable.”</p><p>“You have a problem with bromance, but not with drownable?”</p><p>“My current problem is you two, Strider, but I appreciate your game attempts to find new and exciting ways to irritate me back to my hovel where I can scream into various embroidered pillows.”</p><p>Dirk very slowly raises a hand to flip you off. His hands are bare, you suddenly notice: his fingers go from freaky pale to almost regular genetic mystery pale (You’re not exactly tanning material, yourself, and not just because you cling to long sleeves like dryer lint or have a mild to lethal sun allergy).</p><p>Dipping your toes in the pool, you swirl your feet around. In another lifetime, the only body of water anywhere near you was full of predators and hideous creatures, some of which had horrible social skills. Dirk gently nudges one of your feet. “We do appreciate you coming, Karkat.”</p><p>“I have a soft spot for hopeless cases.” You nudge him back. “Especially ones that toe the line between your current quadrants so much they’re setting it to music and gluing pennies to the bottoms of your shoes.”</p><p>Jake opens his mouth.</p><p>“Say you have your own tap shoes and I will waterboard you, English, so help me God.”</p><p>Jake closes his mouth.</p><p>You drag a hand down your face. “This isn’t your human junior prom where you can just skirt around each other. This world is so new the fucking tag is still on it! There’s nowhere for you and your fee-fees to hide! And save me the ‘junior prom was declared an unlawful gathering two hundred years before I was born’ sob story, because I do not give a singular fermented turd.”</p><p>Dirk almost smiles.</p><p>Jake nudges your opposite foot. Has this pool gotten smaller? “You just seem to have something we’re missing.”</p><p>“Negative inches? Horns? Because I’m looking for excuses to get rid of both of those things.” You flick your foot, spraying him. He sticks his tongue out at you. The tip is bright blue: they ate all the freeze pops before you got here, the troglodytes.</p><p>“You give us shit we don’t even know we need! Uh, but not either of those things, I’m pleased as punch with my vertical, among other things.”</p><p>Dirk leans over. “He finally nailed a one-take parkour track for our channel without yelling ‘geeze louise’ every time he almost missed a footfall.”</p><p>His laugh warms the gooseflesh on your shins where your pants are rolled up.</p><p>Jake splashes him with a little more pep in his step. “You’re the superglue to this little trio, Karkat. So if I may quote the most preeminent philosopher of our time, what are we?”</p><p>You stare at him. You stare at Dirk, who gives you a look you can only identify as <em>what he said, dude. </em>You stare at the pool’s tiny whitecaps, the little pieces of shell in its minuscule beach.</p><p>For the first time in a while, you don’t actually feel all that small.</p><p>“I,” you start, then stop again, wringing your hands in your lap. “I care about you guys.”</p><p>“No shit,” Dirk says gently, “you came running the minute you heard we were tipping the relationship scales a handful of degrees to the left.”</p><p>“I walked over at a very reasonable pace, fuck you very much.” You scooch a little more forward on your chair: the waves creep up your legs and jolt you enough to keep going. “As endearing as it is to watch you both repeatedly make fools of yourself on a global scale, part of me would, um. Part of me would like to, maybe, join in?”</p><p>Jake and Dirk glance at each other, before looking back at you.</p><p>There’s a small quiet, then, not unlike the shore of the beach you grew up next to. It’s a quiet you can cocoon yourself in; a quiet that, even staring into the bottomless left leg of the stupid turtle pool, does not feel like anything remotely close to danger.</p><p>“Okay,” they say, and give your feet a little drum solo. Your pusher provides a lovely counterpoint that would make any human medical professional shit themselves.</p><p>“Okay,” you echo, “but a couple ground rules.”</p><p>The corners of Dirk’s mouth twitch. “Of course you do.”</p><p>“Number one: I don’t parkour. I don’t even jump onto a step with both feet, are you fucking kidding me?”</p><p>“Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it, amigo.” Jake winks at you, and you can feel Dirk roll his eyes at you behind his shades. Encouraging as far as things go.</p><p>“Number two,” you continue, “I am judge and jury of your pointless arguments slash fisticuffs slash bitchfits.”</p><p>“Not the executioner?” Dirk asks.</p><p>“Look at you guys. I’m the benevolent hand that has to break your admittedly shapely asses up if things get more violent than one of those movies where you’re only allowed to say the fuck word once.”</p><p>Both of them nod sagely, which is good, because you’re the pinnacle of wisdom and frankly unappreciated until now. “Anything else, Karkat?”</p><p>“Yes, Jake, thank you. Number three, I ask for a five-minute head start.”</p><p>Dirk’s hair almost stands back up. “Head start for wh—”</p><p>You surge out of your chair, yank him by the shirt and plant a kiss on him.</p><p>And then immediately throw him into the deep end of the pool.</p><p>Jake’s so busy cackling that it lets you have the upper hand against him, too, and then you’re off, your bare feet slapping against the wooden floors as you duck through furniture for a hiding place.</p><p>You’re confident they’ll find you sooner rather than later; it does not concern you even a teeny bit.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>its summer, ive got my hat on backwards and its time to fuckin party *crashes into a polycule*</p></blockquote></div></div>
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